Tax Commentary

In late 2016 IRD published a reasonable if somewhat wordy policy for communicating with stakeholders by email. 

Some time later, as part of a general website refresh,  IRD removed the link to its policy, and refuses to load it until it has completed another review

To summarise:

• A customer, agent or nominated person can give telephone permission to communicate by email
• Subject lines should be meaningful
• IRD will reply to an email without deleting the original ‘string’
• Confidential material in an attachment can have an agreed password, but no zipping or ‘encryption’
• Working spreadsheets or other documents can be emailed if they make it easier for a case to progress (which of course it always will)
• IRD staff best practice recommends turning on ‘read receipts’ ,and where appropriate “out of office” messages (and we should extend the same courtesy)

I am not aware of any substantive change to the principles and the Commissioners office has confirmed they remain in force

Here is a link to IRD’s previously published policies in Owens Tax archives.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/oyzzaozodzsy7af/AAB7m6OhrlFBzKihH23G_kfta?dl=0

IRD has an ever increasing focus on audit activity including the so-called “hidden economy”.

In this article we comment on IRD’s current areas of interest, some challenges with IRD’s approach, and how you should respond.

We have also announced a new service that provides client structural and land transaction information in a user-friendly format.

Read on “IRD audit activity – July 2016 update”

This article follows our article published on 10 March in respect of IRD email policy.
IRD’s policy, in respect of staff sharing spreadsheets with stakeholders, doesn’t contain much guidance. We suggest a number of simple improvements to support “Better Public Services”.

Read on “IRD’s spreadsheet policy finally!”

After years of lobbying IRD Service Delivery has finally published a policy in respect of how staff will interact with stakeholders via email.

At time of writing the policy is buried in the tax agents section of IRD’s website but applies to all stakeholders and all service delivery including investigations, debt management and customer service.

Read on “IRD’s email policy finally!”

IRD now (March 2016) officially allows use of email but puts various barriers in the way. IRD also says that sometimes telephone or snail mail maybe more appropriate than email. We say “come on IRD, get with the 21st century!” Read on “IRD’s clients have good reason for preferring email”

This article briefly sets out the benefits of voluntary disclosures but highlights some significant negative aspects of the way that IRD sometimes administers them.

Read on “Voluntary disclosures – plusses and minuses”